I'm not a clone
by Orenten
Summary: Cass has faced the horrors and challenges of war for two years, battling relentlessly in the ever-changing tides of battle. Though, when brought back to command to be told an "Earth-Shaking" revelation, he's cast into chaos that he has never handled before. Rated MA, for Mature Adults. Language, gore, violence, triggers, nudity, sexual content. All that "Good Stuff". -Orenten


The rocking nearly drove me over the edge. I couldn't tell if I wanted to puke like I was on some bad amusement ride, or fall asleep like I was a child again in the cradle with my parents standing over me, watching me... Well, I knew that much, they were watching me, they were keeping a careful eye over me to make sure that I was preforming to my up-most duty... I couldn't let them down, not after they died for the good fight. So, instead of falling asleep, I did what came naturally... I open my eyes, looked forward, my cheeks swelling up as vomit began to drive up my throat, my lips holding it poorly... But, this was normal, I soon found myself looking down, leaned against my harness in this cramped seat to look down into a bin that someone had moved in front of me just in time. I heaved me mixture of instant-ready meal into to bin, sputtering and coughing heavily as my breakfast left me. The bin was soon pulled away by another soldier whom was also harnessed in beside me to put in front of another man whom was vomiting. The scene was simple... A black interior lit only by a red light, about a dozen men piled into a cluster and shoved into this confining space. About ten of us had actual seats, but two men in mechanical combat suits, or MAXes, were standing in the back. A pilot in the front was busy flying in the flock of galaxies when the commander undid his safety harness, standing and barking at us...

"Alright, maggots! Listen up!" His voice was amplified by the enclosed space, even one of the thick-skull MAX drivers who blasting music inside of his helmet could hear him.  
"We have a special job, given to the Hundred-and-Third ground division! We are a ragtag group of sad sissy pansies that would not know how to shove a grenade up a presenting Rebel's ASS! So, They dragged me away from the Hell Hounds to come fish your sorry asses up and throw you at the best fortified piece of land on this God-Damned Continent!" He stood in the middle of us all, the red light above shutting off as a projection of a hilltop fortress was displayed in red, as was everything in the Terran Republic.  
"I have the God-Damned task of dropping your sorry asses at the feet of The Crown! Welcome to our home boys, because the fucking Smurffs have decided to set up shop in our pride and joy!" He tapped the hill that we were going to be landing on, out of the three points, one on the bridge was already shown as taken, two others in blue were shown to be held by the rebels.  
"We're going to be sending you down systematically! First to drop will be our two MAX units, Patch and Scrap!" He looked to the two... Patch was the one blasting music into his helmet at a ear-damaging loud volume. But, seeing how he was just most likely going to die in the next few minutes and be re-cloned, he had nothing against it. Patch had a checker pattern of red and green across his suit, his helmet studded with small metal studs to make him seem more threatening. No one has really seen Patch out of his said besides his own squad, but we safely assume that he was one of those punk types... Scrap was one of those strong, silent types. He had this edge-lord look to him, painting his max a solid black with custom glowing red eyes. Each of them had duel M1 Heavy Cylinders for taking out infantry.  
On the commander's words, the stamped their feet on the back of the galaxy, making it shake slightly.  
"Behind them, not a second to fucking spare, I want the three engineers to drop down hot on their asses and as soon as they touch sweet Red Dirt, get your nano-repair systems out and start using therm as shields and repair them! That means you three, Roland, Chris, Jacob!"  
Roland was the classical bad-ass you would expect the engineering boys to pump out. When he wasn't patching up the armor and suits, he would be running back to set up anti-vehicle turrets and giving out tanks a bit of help with the ground fire. I sweat, Roland had they eyes of a hawk, because he would always know when to dive aside just as a bullet came cresting for his skull. Next he would just run off and start laying out mines behind the fellas, stopping a flank from the ballsy lightening trying to sneak up on the boys. I gave it to Roland, he was a cool dude, he painted his armor the standard cell camo, didn't add and sparkle or shine...He was effective, modest: Ladies loved him too as a oddity when we were off duty, the Latino color of his skin and hair always drew curious stares. We named him Spanish Romeo. Chris, on the other hand, was like Scrap, in fact I think the two are related seeing their matching insignia. Black armor, dome helmet with red reflective glass. He had the same stuff as Roland, but he carried a Uppercut with him, special zoomed scope and slug rounds to punch into light assaults trying to drop C-4 on our MAXes. Jacob, bless him, was a greenhorn at heart... When I looked to him, I couldn't help but see myself. He was new to the battlefields, no painted armor, no special helmet, no special gun... Standard standard standard. In fact, it was one of the Heavies, Rick, that pulled the can over to let the greenhorn vomit into it. Jacob was a pale-skinned clone, while his master copy sat back in the cloning depot to pump out new version of him. His blonde hair was haphazardly pushed into his helmet, his blue eyes tinted purple by the red visor as he lifted his head up from the half-full bucket.  
The engineers gave a hoot of courage.  
"Third wave, one second after departing, is going to be the two medics, Hannah and June!"  
Hannah and June... God, where do I start with them? They're together, two peas in a pod, lovers on the battlefield on lovers off it. They both had grey camo armor in the texture of static, big red pluses on their helmet to show their standing. Hannah was a brunette energy ball with sparking green eyes while June was a black-haired... I think he said he was of Asian decent, with hazel eyes and pale yellow skin. One had a shotgun, the other a semi-rifle, one to mop up people close to them, another to pick off longer-off targets.  
They smiled, looking to each other and nodding.  
"Second to last, the three brother heavies, Rick, Dick, and Tick!" Rick was the oldest of us here, besides the commander, his age was shown in his eyes, despite the countless re-clones that he had gone through. His Irish pale skin showed his muscular features well, that devilish minigun on his back, ready to fire. The other two were his younger twin brothers, Dick and Tick. Dick was this madman, he always carried around this insane amount of rockets to shoot off into the crowd or at vehicles. Tick was this ADHD mess that ran into battle with a shotgun, shields up and mowing down whoever came in his way before either being put down or called back.  
The three gave a healthy "HOO-RAH!"  
Then, the commander looked at me, his eyes stern, his nose almost scrunching up. "... And you... Cass." Cass was my short name, Cassius was my full name given to me by my parents, but almost everyone's names were shortened into nicknames for combat.  
"God damn, soldier, I read over your files... You're one hellofa mess for the nerds back at the cloning lab! You have more deaths than all of us combined here!" There was a ripple of laughter going through the cabin, I felt anger boil in my stomach as I looked to him, smarting back.  
"Because I do as I'm told, which is normally to jump out of a fucking galaxy to bomb the tanks your sorry asses keep getting blown up by." The ripple of laughter stopped into cold stares from most of them... Hannah and June shared a apologetic gaze, Rick gave a gentle nod of approval as well as Roland, and Jacob only looked to me with scared eyes. He was one seat to the right in front of me.  
Commander seemed ready to commission a bitch-slap across my face.  
"... Well, guess what you get to do again today, sun?" He said simply, taking out a spawning beacon before planting it firmly into the galaxy. "... We got a armor line that will spring at the change to make mince-meat out of our asses with their Anti-Infantry lightenings. I want do to do your favorite thing in the whole wide world..."  
He didn't even need to finish, but I knew my job too well to ignore it... Jump out of the galaxy, drop C-4, take out as many as I could, re-clone, drop again, rinse and repeat. The commander moved to the cockpit, talking to the pilot... I looked back down, but a weak voice came up. "Hey..." Said the voice, I look up, and find Jacob's big, deer-like eyes watching me. "... D... Does it hurt?..." He asked gently. When i blinked, he made the effort to point it out more. "... To die..." He said simply before I sigh, looking down.  
"... It only hurts for a second, private... Trust me, I should know, the pain will start to hurt less and less as you go on... If you go down, wait for a medic or re-clone." There was silence in the cabin... It was always awkward explaining combat to a new soul, but his next words sent everyone into silence.  
"... But... If I die... And God calls me to join him in heaven, won't I be unable to join him?... Aren't we playing God?..." But I heard this... Rick may be old, Roland may be cool, but I had been over this conversation more times than anyone in the damn place...  
It was my job as a off-duty therapist, after all.  
"... Whom are we, but puppets, the sinks to these earthly form controlled by our soul... Our soul resides in a tube, locked away in out true form, our wills being transmitted to the husks of man that we control..." I looked to him, pausing for a long moment, knowing that i had to make these religious types feel welcomed. "... When you die here, you live on in your true body... God will not call you until you truly die..."  
I could see the relief go through the engineers face before he nodded happily. I sat back in the chair, sighing as the commander barked. "All of you besides Cass, harnesses up! You're dropping in twenty seconds!"  
commander sat back down into his seat, putting himself back into place as everyone else stood up. Jacob sheepishly moved over to me, looking to me and asking another question.  
"Won't this kill us, Cass?..."  
I shook me head, chuckling. "Land feet first, Jacob, you'll be fine... Just stay behind the MAX units and you'll be fine."  
One of them looked back, Sir Edgious Maximus spoke in a modified voice to sound like some low-tone badass. "Just don't shit your pants too hard, rookie. My armor is meant for bullets, not stray shitstains."

Then, the sight flashed green... And in five seconds, they were all gone. At second four, the kid was still in front of me, looking back to me with scared, big eyes. So, I did what someone did to me the first time I dropped...  
I booted his ass and shoved him off.

Then, the doors closed, and it was silent inside the cabin... Now I waited, waited to be passed over my own targets...


End file.
